The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-06-02

.FhGArCl- -FiGld0f The Nation.
A Sermon Preached Sunday Morning, Oc-
tober 10, 1884, by Rev. Dewitt Talmage.
uAwaSe. We drunkards, and weep; and
howl, all ye drinkers of winc."-JoEL j. 8, 8.
Noah did the beat and worst thing for
the world, he built an ark against the
deluge of water, but introduced deluge
against which the human race has ever
since been trying to build an ark-the
deluge of drunkenness. In the opening
chapters of the Bible we hear his stag.
gering steps. shem and Japheth tried
to cover up the disgrace, but there he iss,
drunk on wine at time in the history OF
the world when, to say the least, there
was no lack Of water.
INEBR1ATIoE,
having entered the world, has not
retreated. Abigail, the fair and heroic
wife who saved the focks of Nabal, her
husband. from confscation by invaders,
goes home at night and finds him so
intoxicated she cannot tell him the story
of his narrow escape. Uriah came to see
David, and David got him drunk and
paved the way for the despoliation of a
household. Even the church bishops
needed to be charged to be sober and not
given too much wine and so familiar we're
the people ofBible timesswith the stag.
pering and falling motion of theF Fiuebri'
ate that Isaiah, when he comes to
describe the final dislocstion of worlds,
says: "The earth shall reel to and fro
like a drunkard."
Ever since apples and grapes and
wheat grew the world has been tempted
to unhealthful stimulants. But the
intoxicants of the olden time were an
innocent beverage, harmless oraDgeade,
a quiet syrup, a peaceful soda.water, -as
compared with the liquids of modern
inebriation, into which a madness, and a
fury, aud gloom, and fire, and sui.
eide, and retribution have mixed and
mingled. Fermentation was always
known, but it was not until o thousand
years after Christ that distillation was
invented.
While we must confess that ~some OF
the ancient arts have been lost, the
Christian era is superior to all others in
the bad eminence Of whiskey and rum
and gin. The modern drunk is hum
dred fold worse than the ancient drunk.
Noah in his intoxication became imbe.
cile, but the victims Of modern alcohol
ism have to struggle with whole
mepageries of wild beasts and jungles OF
kissing serpents and perditions OF bias
.pheming demons. An
ARCH. .FIEND ARRIVED
in our world, and he built an invisible
caldron Of temptation. He built that
caldron strong, and stout for all ages and
all nations. First he squeezed into the
caldron the juices of the forbidden fruit
of Paradise. Then he gathered for it Q
distillation from the harvest fields and
the orchards of the hemispheres. Then
he poured into this caldron capsicum
and coppszas, and logwood, and deadly
nightshade, and assault and battery, and
vitriol, aud opium, and rum, and murder
and sulphuric acid, and theft, and
potash, aud cochineal, and red carrots
and poverty, and death, and hops. But
it was a. dry compound, and it must be
moiatened and it must be liauefed, and
so the arch-6end poured into that cal
dron the tears of centuries of orphanage
and widowhood, and he poured in the
blood ofitwenty thousand assassipations
And then the arch fend took shovel
that he had brought up from the furnaces
beneath, and he put that shovel into
THIS GREAT CALDRON
and began to stir, and the caldron began
to heave, and rock, and boil, and sputter
and hiss, and smoke, and the nations
gathered around it with cups, and tan
kards, and demijohns, and kegs, and
there was enough for all, and the arch
5fiend cried: "Aha! champion fend am
]. Who has done more than I have fol
cofins, and gravsyards, and prisons, and
insane asyluns, and the populating o.
the lost world? And when this caldror
is emptied I'll fill it again. and I'll stil
it again and it will smoke again. and
that smoke will join another smoke-the
smoke of torment that ascendeth fol
ever and ever.
aI drove fifty ships on the rocks o.
Newfoundland and the Skerries and The
Goodwins. I defeated the Northern
army at Fredericksburg. I-have ruined
more senators than will gather mex
winter in the national al7councils.= ! have
ruined more lords than will be gathered
in the House of Peers. The cup ont o.
which I ordinarily drink is bleached
human skull, and the upholstery of my
palace is so rich crimson because it il
dyed in human gore, and the mosaic Of
my floors is made up of the bones o.
children dashed to death by drunken
parents, and my favorite music-sweetel
than Te Deum or triumphal march-my
fayorite music is the cry of daughter
turned out at midnight on the street
because father has. come home from the
carousal, and the seven hundred-voiced
shrek of the sinking steamer because